delayed at least forty days longer-as long as it took God to destroy the world. by a flood-and for what? In order that five very respectable, highly intelligent, very learned and able lawyers may write an answer to certain articles of impeachment. Having failed in that, now the proposition is to delay more and more, while there is at least one department of the government thrown into confusion and disorganization as we are thus delaying.

But, sir, this is the least of the mischiefs of delay. The great pulse of the nation beats perturbedly while even this strictly constitutional, but highly and truly anomalous proceeding goes on. It pauses fitfully when we pause, and goes forward when we go forward; and the very question of national prosperity in this country arising out of the desire of men to have business interests settled, to have prosperity return, to have the spring open as auspiciously under our laws as it will under the laws of nature, depend upon our actions here and now. I say the very pulse of the country beats here, and beating fitfully, requires us to still it by bringing this respondent to justice, and may God send him a good deliverance, if he so deserve, at the earliest possible hour; ay, the very earliest hour consistently with the preservation of his rights. Instead, therefore, of fixing a time now in advance when he shall be tried, (if you will allow me respectfully to say as much,) giving him time, which he may be supposed to want for preparation of his trial, fix the trial at an early day, and then, if his counsel choose to draw analogies from the trials under criminal law or the civil law, let him when he comes here, under his oath and under the certificate of his counsel, say that he cannot get ready to meet a given article, and if he shows due diligence, then give him all the time he ought to have to fairly put before you the exact form and feature of everything he has done.

But, I humbly submit, do not in advance presume that he cannot get ready until he comes and shows to the Senate some reason, upon his oath, why he may not be ready. Let every part of the case stand upon its own merits. If the respondent comes here and says to the Senate, after he puts in his answer, “I am not ready for trial because I cannot get a given witness," let him, as his counsel clains we ought to do, follow the ordinary rule and say to the Senate, "If I could get that witness he would testify thus, and thus, and thus ;" and the managers would answer, "We will either produce him here at the bar when you call him, or we will admit that he would testify thus, and thus, and thus, and you shall have the entire benefit of the testimony; for God forbid—and I speak with all reverence-that we should deprive him of a single right or a single indulgence consistent with the public safety and speedy justice. Therefore, whenever any such motion is made, you, senators, I respectfully submit, will be ready, able, and willing, desirous to meet it, and grant indulgence when a case is made out for indulgence.

Allow me one other word. We ask no more of the Senate as against this defendant than what we are willing to deal to ourselves. The great, perhaps the determining act, upon which the respondent is here brought to your bar, was committed by him on the 21st of February. He knew it and all its consequences then as well and better than we could. The House of Representatives dealt with the action of the respondent on the 22d. On the 4th of March we brought before the Senate and to his notice what we claimed were the legal consequences of that act. We are now come here ready for trial of our accusation founded upon that act. We are here instant for trial, pressing for trial de die in diem. Make the days as long as the judges of England made them, when they sat twenty-two hours out of the twenty-four in the trial of great criminals, and we, the managers on behalf of the House of Representatives, God giving us strength, will still attend here at your bar every hour and every moment, your humble servitors, for the purpose of justice. We have had only from the 22d of February to now to make ready for the trial of the accusation. He has had just as long. He knew at first more about this action of his than we could.

He

knows all about it now. He knows exactly what he has done, and why and how he has done it. We can only partly guess at all he has done from the part we see; yet we are willing to go to trial on behalf of the people of the United States, say with only these fourteen days' preparation. You have granted him seven more, say twenty-one in all, and we ask, after you have given him one-third more time than we have had to prosecute, at least that he shall be held to meet us with the defence.

Sir, I trust you will pardon me a single further suggestion. I hope hereaf ter no man anywhere will say that the charges upon which we have arraigned Andrew Johnson at this bar are either frivolous, unsubstantial, or of none effect, because five gentlemen of the highest respectability, skill, and legal acumen, as counsel I know one of them would not for his life say what he did not believe-have told us that the articles of impeachment were so grave and so substantial that it would take them forty days even to write an answer to them. The charges are so grave, so momentous, so potent, that, with all their legal ability, forty days will be required to write an answer; and then, after they have had forty days in addition to ten already, giving them fifty days, they say they would need still further time for preparation to meet us on the trial of these charges.

I may only humbly hope that I have made myself understood in this unprepared and hurried statement of some reasons which press on my associates and myself to urge forward this trial. You will see their force and the arguments which should accompany them much better than I can state them. If I have brought your minds-perhaps a little swerved by pity and clemency for so great an accused-again to their true poise of judgment upon the question of the necessity for this country that justice shall speedily be done upon the accused, I have succeeded in all I could hope. If we are mistaken in all our accusations and the respondent is the great and good man he ought to be, and he shall go free, be it so; the country will have quiet then. If you come to the other determination which we present, and demand you shall do if it be proved, then be that so, and the country will have quiet. But upon this so great trial, I pray let us not belittle ourselves with the analogies of the common-law courts, or the equity courts, or the criminal courts, because nothing is so dangerous to mislead Let us deal with this matter as one wherein the life of the nation hangs trembling in the scale; where the rights of the nation are put in the balance, and a trial is to be had upon the greatest question that ever yet engaged the attention of any body, however learned or however wise, sitting in judgment.

us.

Mr. NELSON. Mr. Chief Justice, and gentlemen of the Senate: I have entered this chamber as one of the counsel of the President, profoundly impressed with the idea that this is the most exalted judicial tribunal now upon earth. I have endeavored, in coming here, to divest my mind of the idea that we are to engage in political discussion, and to feel impressed with the thought that we appear before a tribunal, the members of which are sworn as judges, to try the great questions which have been submitted to their consideration, not as mere party questions, but as the grand tribunal of the nation, disposed to dispense justice equally between two of the greatest powers, if I may so express myself, in the land. I have come here under the impression that there is much force in the observation which the honorable manager made in regard to the forms of proceeding in this tribunal, that it is not to be governed by the iron and rigid rules of law, but that, seeking to attain justice, it is disposed to allow the largest liberty in the progress of the investigation, both to the honorable managers on the part of the House of Representatives, and to the counsel in behalf of the President of the United States.

Impressed with the idea that this tribunal will discard in a great degree those forms and ceremonies which are known to the common law; that it does not stand upon demurrers; that it will not stand particularly upon the forms of evi

dence, or those technical rules which prevail in other courts, I have supposed that there was nothing improper in our making an appeal to this tribunal for time to answer the charges which have been preferred against the President of the United States; and that, instead of that being denied, much more liberality would be extended by the Senate of the nation, sitting as a court of impeachment, than we could even expect upon a trial in one of the courts of common law.

It is not my purpose. Mr. Chief Justice, to enter at this stage into a discussion of the charges which are preferred here, though it would seem to be invited by one or two of the observations which were made by the honorable manager, [Mr. BUTLER.] I do not propose at this stage of your proceedings to enter into any discussion of them. You are told, however, that it is right in a case of this kind to proceed with railroad speed; and that, in consequence of the great improvements which have been made in the country, we can proceed much more rapidly in the investigation of a case of this kind than such a case could be proceeded with a few years ago. Nevertheless, the charges which are made here are charges of the gravest importauce. The questions which will have to be considered by this honorable body are questions of the deepest and profoundest interest. They are questions in which not only the representatives of the people are concerned, but the people themselves have the deepest and most lasting interest in the result of this investigation. Questions are raised here in regard to differences of opinion between the Executive of the nation and the honorable House of Representatives as to their constitutional powers, and as to the rights which they respectively claim. These are questions of the utmost gravity, and questions which, in the view we entertain of them, should receive the most deliberate consideration on the part of the Senate.

I trust that I shall be pardoned by the Chief Justice and the senators in making an allusion to a statute which has long been in force in the State from which I come. I only do it for the purpose of making a brief argument by analogy to you and the honorable body whom I am addressing. We have a statute in the State of Tennessee, which has long been in force, which provides that when a bill of indictment is found against an individual, and he thinks, owing to excitement or any other cause, he may not have a fair trial at the first term of the court, his case shall be continued until the next term. The mode of proceeding at law-and no man, I presume, in the United States is more familiar with it than the Chief Justice whom I have the honor of addressing on this occasion-is not a mode of railroad speed. If there is anything under the heavens that gives to judicial proceedings a claim to the consideration and the approbation of mankind, it is the fact that judges and courts hasten slowly in the investigation of cases that are presented to them. Nothing is done or presumed to be done in a state of excitement. Every moment is allowed for calm and mature deliberation. The courts are in the habit of investigating cases slowly, carefully, cautiously; and when they form their judgments and pronounce their opinions, and those opinions are published to the world, they meet the sanction of judicial minds and legal minds everywhere, and they meet the approbation and the confidence of the people before whom they are promulgated. If this is and ever has been one of the proudest characteristics, if I may so express myself, of the forms of judicial proceedings in our courts, how much more in an exalted and honorable body like this; how much more in an assembly composed of some of the wisest and greatest men in the United States, senators revered and honored by their countrymen, senators who from their position are presumed to be free from reproach, who from their position are presumed to be calm in their deliberations and in their investigations-how much more in such a body as this ought we to proceed cautiously, and ought every opportunity to be given for a fair investigation.

Mr. Chief Justice, I need not tell you, nor need I tell many of the honorable

senators whom I address on this occasion, many of whom are lawyers, many of whom have been clothed in times past with the judicial ermine, that in the courts of law the vilest criminal who ever was arraigned in the United States has been given time for preparation, time for hearing. The Constitution of the country secures to the vilest man in the land the right not only to be heard himself, but to be heard by counsel; and no matter how great his crime, no matter how deep may be the malignity of the offence with which he is charged, he is tried according to the forms of law; he is allowed to have counsel; continuances are granted to him; if he is unable to obtain justice, time is given to him, and all manner of preparation is allowed him.

If this is so in courts of common law, that are fettered and bound by the iron rules to which I have adverted, how much more in a great tribunal like this, that does not follow the precedents of law, but that is aiming and seeking alone to attain justice, ought we to be allowed ample time for preparation in reference to charges of the nature which we have here! How much more, sir, should such time be given us!

We are told that the President acted in regard to one of the matters which is charged against him by the House of Representatives on the 21st of February, and that by the 4th of March-if I did not mistake the statement of the honorable manager-the House of Representatives had presented this accusation against the President of the United States; and that, therefore, the President, who knew what he was doing, should be prepared for his defence. Mr. Chief Justice, is it necessary for me to remind you and honorable senators that you can upon a page of foolscap paper prepare a bill of indictment against an individual which may require weeks in the investigation? Is it necessary for me to remind this honorable body that it is an easy thing to make charges, but that it is often a laborious and difficult thing to make a defence against those accusations ?

Reasoning from the analogy furnished by such proceedings at law, I earnestly maintain before this honorable body that suitable time should be given us to answer the charges which are made here. A large number of these chargesthose of them connected with the President's action in reference to the Secretary of War-involve questions of the deepest importance. They involve an inquiry running back to the very foundation of the government; they involve an examination of the precedents which have been set by different administrations; they involve, in short, the most extensive range of inquiry. The two last charges that were presented by the House of Representatives, if I may be pardoned for using the expression in the view which I entertain of them, open Pandora's box, and will cause an investigation as to the great differences of opinion which have existed between the President and the House of Representatives, an inquiry which, so far as I can perceive, will be almost interminable in its character.

Now, what do we ask for the President of the United States? The honorable manager corrected himself in the expression that he was a criminal. What do we ask in behalf of the President of the United States, the highest officer in this land? Why, sir, we ask simply that he shall be allowed time for his defence. And upon whose judgment is he to rely in regard to that? He must, in great part, rely upon the judgment of his counsel, those to whom he has intrusted his defence. We, upon our professional responsibility, have asserted, in the presence of this Senate, in the face of the nation and of the whole world, that we believe it will require the number of days to prepare the Presi dent's answer which we stated to the Senate in the paper which we submitted to the Senate. Such is still our opinion. And when these grave charges are presented are they to be rushed through the Senate, sitting as a judicial tribunal, in hot haste and with railroad speed, without giving to the President of the United States the opportunity to answer them, that same opportunity which you would give to the meanest criminal that ever was arraigned before the bar of

justice in any tribunal in this or in the country from which we borrowed our law?

I cannot believe, Mr. Chief Justice, that honorable senators will hesitate for one moment in granting us all the time that may be necessary to prepare our defence, and that may be necessary to enable them to decide as judges carefully, deliberately, conscientiously, and with a view of their accountability, not only to their constituents, but their accountability to posterity who are to come after us, for the names of American senators are dear not only to those who sent them here, but they are names which are to live after the scenes of to-day shall have passed away. I have no doubt that honorable senators, in justice to themselves and in justice to the great land which they represent, will endeavor to conduct this investigation in a manner that will stamp the impress of honor and justice upon them and upon their proceedings, not only now, but in all time to come, when they shall be cited after you, and I, and all of us, shall have passed away from the stage of human action.

Mr. Chief Justice, this is an exalted tribunal. I say it in no spirit of compliment. I say it because I feel it. I feel that this is the most exalted tribunal that can be convened under the sun, a tribunal of senators, honorable members, who are sent here to sit in judgment upon one of the gravest and greatest accusations that ever was made in the land. And I may say, in answer to an observation of the honorable manager on the other side, that I, for one, as an American citizen, feel proud that we are assembled here to-day, and assembled under the circumstances which have brought us together. It is one of the first instances in the history of the world in which the ruler of a people has been presented by a portion of the representatives of the people for trial before another branch of the law-making power sitting as a judicial tribunal. While that is so it is equally true that on the other hand the President, through his counsel, comes here and submits himself to the jurisdiction of this court, submits himself calmly, peaceably, and with a confident reliance on the justice of the honorable Senate who are to hear his cause.

Mr. Chief Justice, I sincerely hope that the resolution which has been offered will meet the approbation of the honorable Senate. I hope that time will be given us, and that this proceeding, which in all time to come will be quoted as a precedent for others, will be conducted with that gravity, that dignity, that decorum which are fit and becoming in the representatives of a free and a great people.

Mr. CONKLING. I wish to submit an amendment to the proposition pending in the nature of a substitute:

Ordered, That, unless otherwise ordered by the Senate for cause shown, the trial of the pending impeachment shall proceed immediately after replication shall be filed.

The CHIEF JUSTICE. The amendment submitted by the senator from New York does not appear to the Chair to be in order at present. The motion of the senator from Ohio [Mr. Sherman] is that the Senate adopt the following order:

Ordered, That the trial of the articles of impeachment shall proceed on the 6th day of April next.

The senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Wilson] moves to amend it by striking out the word "sixth" and inserting "first." That is the present motion. Mr. WILSON. I propose to modify my amendment by saying Monday, the 30th of March.

Mr. CONKLING. Does the Chair decide that my proposition is not in order? The CHIEF JUSTICE. The Chair does not conceive it to be in order at present. Mr. CONKLING. Then I beg to modify in this way: I move to amend the amendment of the senator from Massachusetts by striking out the date which he inserts, whatever that date may be, and inserting in lieu thereof the words, "immediately after replication filed, unless otherwise ordered by the Senate."